Exclusive: Wake Up! Once Upon a Time Has Cast Sarah Bolger as Sleeping Beauty

Irish beauty Sarah Bolger shall also be a Sleeping Beauty, on ABC’s Once Upon a Time.

TVLine has learned exclusively that Bolger’s recurring character, Princess Aurora, will be introduced during the sophomore run of Once, which was last season’s highest-rated freshman drama. The fantastical series will again air Sundays at 8/7c; ABC has not yet announced their fall premiere dates.

Given Aurora’s backstory — namely, how she was cursed by Maleficent to die (or thanks to a fairy guardian, only fall into a very deep sleep) from a finger prick on a spinning wheel — one has to wonder if we have not seen the last of True Blood‘s Kristin Bauer van Straten in the fairytale land that was.

The 21-year-old Bolger’s credits include Showtime’s The Tudors (where she collected an Irish Film and Television Award for her portrayal of Mary) and the 2002 film In America, for which she earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination among other nods.

I don’t know if it’s confirmation that Maleficent is not dead yet. She’ll appear in the fairytale story of course, but in Storybrooke Aurora’s antagonist could be Regina or Rumple if they don’t want to bring Maleficent back to life or if they can’t get Kristin on a recurring basis. I do hope they can work around Kristin’s schedule and we’ll get to see Maleficent in Storybrooke though.

1. isn’t she a series regular on gilded lillys?
2. I know many Game of Thrones fans (myself included) are hoping she’s been cast as Meera Reed. I wonder if this is a definitive no to our “dream casting” if so, darn! but i’m looking forward to see her on Once.

I don’t know about Gilded Lillys, but on OUAT she’s supposed to play a recurring character. They introduced Cinderella as another recurring princess character last season and she showed up in 2 or 3 episodes. If they’re planning to spent a similar amount of episodes on Aurora and Mulan each, it should easily be possibly for both actresses to work on other projects.

Where did you hear that rumor about Meera Reed? I love that rumor! She was phenomenal on The Tudors. She’d be great in GoT. Glad she’s on Once. Interested to see how they treat Prince Phillip. He actually had way more crap to do than Charming or Cinderella’s prince in the animated Disney version of the story- and had way more screen time.

Not to mention he is one of the more competent princes. All the Charmings had to do was dance and kiss. Eric has to be rescued… twice. Princes are a lazy do nothing lot for the most part. Except Phillip who is the best Prince and Aurora is my favorite princess.

Yay! I’ve never seen in her in anything but I can picture her as Aurora, I wonder if she’ll be blonde or not? I am so ready for this show to come back, hopefully Comic-Con will help ease my withdrawal symptoms :D

I have definitely got to give Once Upon a Time another go-round. I watched the first two episodes, thought it was good but doubted it would last so quit watching before I got attached. Hopefully there’s repeats this summer so I can catch up.

the first couple of episodes was rough, and I thought Jennifer Morrison’s acting was overly dramatic. But either it improved, or I got more used to it (lol) but I do enjoy the later parts of the season more.

Anyone else think Rumple is going to play a big part in her fairy tale land story? Spinning wheels are kinda important in both stories (SB gets pricked by one, Rumple spins gold from one, etc). Just makes me even more excited for the show to come back! Yay!

Being that they call Aurora, Sleeping “Beauty”, her appearance would be quite significant. Therefore having her as a blonde would make her a more believable Aurora. Having her as a brunette would just be weird. It might be like having two Belles.
And why would OUAT even want to deviate from appearance when they have been spot on with the appearance of other Disney princes they portrayed such as Belle and Cinderella.

The reason I want her to be blonde is because her name is Aurora because she brought the light into her parents life and the fairy godmothers bless her with Golden hair at her birth because of her name. Hence the need for blonde hair if her name is going to be Aurora and they are following the Disney roots.

I know right? It’s the acting that counts. Sarah is a great actress, especially with these types of roles. The Disney-fied version of Aurora is blonde, but who says the producers are going off of that version?

I love all the fairytales but there are so many of them, I am getting worried that we won’t see enough of the season one regulars and recurrings. I loved all the season one characters but it felt like we didn’t spend enough time with red, belle, granny, gepatto, hatter, david anders, grumpy, the other dwarfs and archie. I’m getting worried it will get too crowded.

I wonder how they’re going to tie Maleficent’s story to Sleeping Beauty. Emma just recently killed Maleficent in Storybrooke. Does this mean Prince Philip doesn’t get to kill Maleficent in the fairytale land?